Met general manager Joseph Volpe, who met with Levine on Friday, said in a telephone interview yesterday that the conductor likely would need a three-month recovery time after the shoulder operation.
''The doctors are not going to let him start early," Volpe said. ''The problem is raising your arm."
Meanwhile, the managing director of the Boston Symphony, Mark Volpe, said Levine's doctor's expect the maestro to fully recovered in time for his next scheduled appearance with the BSO -- the July 7 opening of the Tanglewood season in Lenox.
''He expects to have the surgery a week from Monday, and has the full intention, God willing, of being able to begin our season on July 7," Volpe said.
He said Levine is especially determined to meet his commitment to spend five weeks at Tanglewood working with the young musicians who come to the BSO summer facility for master classes and performance. That work is hugely important to Levine, he said.
Volpe said the procedure will be done at New York's Lenox Hill Hospital by a shoulder surgeon who has worked with other leading musicians, among them the pianist Claudio Arrau.
Levine, in a statement, voiced regret at having to bow out of so much of the season ahead.
''Nobody regrets this more than I do, and I can only express the enormous disappointment and frustration I feel," Levine said. The 62-year-old conductor made his Met debut in 1971 and has become the company's central figure.
Levine, who has led more than 2,000 performances at the Met, will be absent from the podium for his longest stretch in more than three decades.
He will cancel appearances in Beethoven's ''Fidelio" that were to start March 20, a new production of Donizetti's ''Don Pasquale" that opens March 31, plus revivals of Wagner's ''Lohengrin" and ''Parsifal."
He also will miss the season-closing gala on May 20 honoring Volpe, who is retiring Aug. 1, and the Met's June tour in Japan, where he was to conduct Wagner's ''Die Walkuere" and Mozart's ''Don Giovanni."
On Sept. 25, he is to return to the Met for Puccini's ''Madama Butterfly," the opening-night performance after Peter Gelb succeeds Volpe as general manager.
